Tag Archives: GPA

PARENTS: After Your Child Has Submitted Their Last College Application

A friend of mine told me about a website and Facebook page called Grown and Flown.

One of the first Grown and Flown posts I read is about what to say to your child after they have finished their last College application. After they hit send on their last College application, my kids (and to be honest, my) overwhelming emotion was relief. A lot of work and stress has taken place to get to this point, it’s nice to check this activity off the list. I’m not sure what my kids felt next, but I definitely felt frustration. After all that work leading to this moment that we couldn’t wait to arrive, we now have to wait, wonder and ponder. Wait to hear back, wonder whether they will be accepted and ponder where they will attend College.

Pixabay UndecidedIf your child applies Early Decision and gets accepted or applies Early Action and/or Rolling Admission and gets accepted and chooses to not wait to hear back from other Colleges, that wait could be as little as a month, Otherwise, that wait is likely a minimum of 3 months, but sometimes as long as 5 months, or even longer if they applied long before the application deadline. During those months, you may be wondering if they will be attending the nearby State College or that small liberal arts College is Northern Maine. Will they need sunblock and swimsuits or a warm parka? Is this going to cost $7,000 or $70,000 a year?

As the writer in the post above notes, it seems like things should be said at that point, but I had no idea what to say, other than “Good job”. The writer provides some great advice.

On a related note, for those of you who feel too busy to read parenting books now your child is no longer a toddler, the internet is a great resource for advice. Being a thoughtful parent is work, so if you feel too overwhelmed to be thoughtful, do an internet search on an issue and let others who have been thoughtful offer you some advice. Being a thoughtful parent of a teenager is one of the best ways to spend your time. Teenage years are really tough years, especially these days. Don’t think your parenting should be limited to setting curfews and asking if they did their homework. Another reason for being a thoughtful parent? Your teenager will soon be leaving the nest. You want them to think of that nest as a warm, comfortable, loving place, so they want to come back on occasion.

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***
Disclaimer

 

Grades and Test Scores – How Do I Fix This?

If you feel that your grades and/or test scores are not as good as you would like them to be, there are things you can do to help. Even if you think it’s too late, read on for advice on how to deal with this problem.

Grades

Underclassmen (Freshman, Sophomore years)

  • If for whatever reason your grades as an underclassmen are not great, it is not a deal-breaker for a lot of Colleges.
  • Some Colleges don’t even consider Freshman year grades, because they realize that students are adjusting to the rigor of High School.
  • If you can pull up your grades as an upperclassmen, you can compensate for a low GPA. It also make a good story, demonstrating how you overcame obstacles.
  • On the other hand, Freshman year is often the easiest academic High School year. Try to get the best grades you can at the time when it’s easiest to do so, because low grades will have a big impact on your GPA.

Upperclassmen (Junior, Senior years)

  • You should avoid having your grades take a major drop as an upperclassmen.

    C Please Come See Me

    Colleges want you to demonstrate that you can adjust to increased academic rigor with more effort, and hopefully with academic success.

  • Your academic rigor may increase as an upperclassmen, so Colleges won’t be shocked to see a slight drop in your GPA.  But they want to see that “As the going gets tough, the tough get going.” and that you are able to adapt to the challenge of added rigor.
  • Colleges also want to see you maintain your grades after you have applied and even been accepted into a College, so don’t think the last half of your senior year is time to let it all go.

Narrative

Report Card

Explain any blemishes in your academic record, otherwise the Admissions Officer may incorrectly infer why those blemishes took place.

It’s important to create (not imagine) a narrative that describes your academic journey in High School, particularly if there are blemishes in your academic record.  Did your parents divorce your Sophomore year, making your 2nd semester grades tank?  Did you start working 20+ hours a week starting your Junior year? Did your parent take an evening job, which meant you became your younger siblings’ babysitter from 3-8 each day? If the only thing an Admissions Officer has to review your files is your transcripts, they imagine their own narrative for why your grades were less than stellar.  Even if you don’t have a great reason, be honest and hope they will understand. Try to demonstrate that you have grown from your High School experience.

Check out  Class Rank – Don’t Be Worried!  and Get Good Grades for more information.

Test Scores

Pixabay Test

Explain why your grades and test scores are disparate

The narrative is even more important if you have amazing test scores and weak grades. Most people will assume you didn’t apply yourself in school and/or were lazy about homework. But they will be wondering about your smarts, if you could still manage to pull off high test scores.

Colleges realize that some people are better at taking tests than others. Lots of students have test anxiety, for example. But if you have high grades and low test scores, they will wonder if your school handed out easy A’s, but lacked educational depth.  Don’t let these holes in your academic resume go unexplained.

See Standardized Tests for more information.

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***

Disclaimer

Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth breeds knowledge (and knowledge is POWER).

You Never Know When You Will Learn Something New, Sometimes From an Unexpected Source

You Never Know When You Will Learn Something New, Sometimes From an Unexpected Source

I know, I know, you get what you pay for. But word-of-mouth is invaluable in both preparing for College and The College Search, in the same way that this website is valuable to students and parents, because you are getting advice from a parent who has recently helped their child in The College Search and who understands the need for specific, organized, pertinent information about The Search. Effective word-of-mouth, by my definition, means that people are sharing information they think is valuable to each other. Word-of-mouth information can be inaccurate or incomplete, but it often provides a bigger picture, and a different perspective.

Do you need examples?

1. My kid wants to take a class not offered at her school (Advanced French, for example), and is debating whether to take that class at another High School, a Community College or on-line. She asks her counselor, who suggests she take the class on-line, because its hard to line up her class schedule at her High School with when that class is offered at another High School or Community College.  She is proactive, and asks a few friends who have taken off-campus courses for advice. One of them warns her that their school allows only 2 classes be taken on-line. My kid wanted to take Health and Creative Writing through on-line courses, and realizes that if she takes Advanced French on-line, that will preclude her plans for Health and Creative Writing. She can now make a more informed decision, some of that information coming from word-of-mouth, which is more complete information than she discovered merely by talking to her counselor.

2. A Senior in High School is debating whether to apply to a “reach” school, thinking it’s unlikely he will be accepted. He mentions this school to a friend, who happens to be friends with a College Junior (Sherry) attending that College. This friend tells him that Sherry struggled with her grades when she attended their same High School. He mentions this news to a teacher, who knows Sherry. The teacher offers to connect the students over Skype. During their discussion, Sherry admits that she did not have a great cumulative GPA due to some missteps early in her High School years, which makes the boy hopeful, as his GPA is also not stellar. She said that based on conversations with the school and her classmates after she attended the College, she understood more about what got her “in”: a) the College valued that she got consistently better grades starting her Junior year, b) she had spectacular test scores, and c) the school emphasizes sports, and she was a star varsity volleyball player. At this point, he feels less hopeful, as he has not been successful in raising his grades his Junior and Senior years, his test scores are average and he doesn’t play a sport. Can he find more information that might might make him think he can get in? Yes, but he knows a lot more after the conversation with Sherry than if he had only been told that there’s a kid from their high school who wasn’t a great student that got in. That doesn’t mean he can’t apply, but now he knows his chances of acceptance are not high. Maybe that conversation gets him thinking about how Sherry’s talents helped her gain acceptance, and that he should look for another desirable “reach” school that emphasizes music, because he was a finalist in the State Competition, playing the oboe. Knowledge is power!

The key to word-of-mouth is you have to be talking to someone who has experienced the same issue or know someone who has, and that this person became very knowledgeable about that issue. That is why a College Counselor can be invaluable, because they know the intimate details of many students’ experiences, and therefore will be more likely to provide relevant information. But even their experiences are limited, so you should still be trying to procure word-of-mouth information, censoring it for inaccuracies. Seek knowledge through many resources, but don’t discount the value of word-of-mouth.

Pixabay Playmobile Figures Talking

Great things can come from talking to others about your College Search

When I am with a group of parents with High-School aged children, it is invariable that a discussion about Colleges results. These can be GREAT discussions, because someone is sharing a story or insight, and if there are others in the group with similar experiences, they can elaborate or disagree, based on their knowledge. That story leads to more questions, and I am leaving that gathering with new things to think about.

 

Word-of-Mouth Breeds Success

Another reason to get in the habit of promoting these discussions? Most people agree that success in life often comes from who you know. But you need to FIGURE OUT who you know. Do you know where your friends went to College? Their current employer and position, as well as previous employer and positions? Where they used to live? Their sports and favorite past-times? Knowing who you know means you can take advantage of their experiences when the need arises.

If you are a connectoror know a connector, good things result.

Connecting Can Be Fulfilling

Connecting Can Be Fulfilling

connector knows about their friends, co-workers, etc. and connects people. If their cousin wants to be a Financial Advisor, they connect her with their son’s best friend’s father, who is a Financial Advisor. When their babysitter is moving to Oregon for a position at Nike, they connect him to their co-worker, who used to live in Oregon and has friends who work at Nike.

Word-of-Mouth can be awesome!

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***

Disclaimer

Class Rank – Don’t be Worried!

Pixabay Bored Student

Class Rank Should Not Be Really High On Your List of Worries

Class Rank is important, it’s just not really important. It’s also complicated. For example, my children attend a High School that does not weight GPA’s. Nor, like some schools, does their school weight GPA solely for the calculation of class rank. If you are a student who takes a rigorous workload (Honors, AP or Baccalaureate courses), unweighted GPA’s can work against you. A student who chooses to take a less rigorous workload will likely find it easier to maintain a high GPA. But….

I read with concern that many selective holistic schools rank class rank as a “Very Important” consideration for admission, and that a large percentage (70, 80 or even 90%) of a selective school’s incoming Freshman were in the top 10% of the class. I became worried that my child with a high, but not perfect GPA, did not rank in the top 10% of their class, would be denied admission because they could not manage to maintain a 4.0 with their rigorous workload. I reminded myself that Academic Rigour is also usually often ranked as a “Very Important” consideration for admission, and that Admissions Officers will closely scrutinize and value my student’s workload. But it still bothered me.

Then I learned about the Common Data Set (CDS). It wasn’t until I read the CDS for some of the selective schools that I realized that while yes, a very high percentage of students were ranked highly, conversely a very low percentage of students reported their class rank!  For example, one school listed the percentage of students in the top 10% of their class at nearly 75%, while just over 20% of students had reported their class rank.  This taught me not only that class rank was less likely to hurt my children’s admission chances, but also, that they DID NOT NEED to report class rank if they felt it would work against them. On the other hand, your High School has chosen whether to include your class rank along with your transcript and other relevant information they submit to Colleges where you apply. If you are worried about your class rank, ask your High School Counselor about your school’s policy regarding submitting class rank.

 This leads to another discussion about why some selective schools boast a holistic admission process but state that test scores, grades, class rank and the like are Very Important  – I call it the College Admissions’ Publisher Rankings Anxiety.

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***

Disclaimer

College Admissions’ Publishers Rankings Anxiety

Rankings Publications such as the US News & World Report Best Colleges use primarily non-subjective criteria to rank the best Colleges and their selectivity. This is why holistic Colleges still need to be aware of the profile of the typical admitted student, including their GPA, class rank and test scores. I call this phenomenon Publisher Ranking Anxiety. Do you want evidence of Publisher Ranking Anxiety? Let’s look at Stanford University, which has a reputation for applying a holistic approach to their Admissions. Go to Collegedata.com and type in Stanford in the enter College name box. Choose the Admission tab and scroll down to Selection of Students. Many factors that can impact admission are listed, and factors are categorized as either Very ImportantImportantConsidered or Not Considered.

What factors does Stanford rank as Very Important?
  • Rigor
  • GPA
  • Standardized Tests
  • Class Rank
  • Recommendations
  • Essay
  • Extracurricular Activities
  • Particular Talent/Ability
  • Character/Personal Qualities

Even Stanford heavily weights GPA, class rank and test scores.

Colleges that take a holistic approach to College admissions choose to look beyond grades and test scores to assess an applicant’s potential, taking into consideration factors that may have made academic success difficult. Colleges also assess a student’s drive and leadership abilities.

Pixabay Human Head in WirePublisher Ranking Anxiety is my term for why Colleges that choose to take a holistic approach to admissions still focus on factors like test scores and GPA, because they are still worried how they will be ranked by publications such as the US News & World Report.

There was an interesting article in August of 2013 in the NY Times on holistic admissions. The author became an “external reader” for Berkeley, helping rate College applicants on a scale of 1-5. This article confirms what we already know – Admissions is complicated.

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***

Disclaimer

Setting Realistic Expectations with Limited Knowledge – The Early College Search

How do you set realistic expectations for your eligibility at selective Colleges before you have taken Standardized Tests or otherwise demonstrated your academic abilities?

The Early College Search Question You are on top of your College Search. You (or your child) aren’t yet well into your Junior year, but you want to make sure that you are doing all the right things (academics, extracurriculars, etc.) so that you are an Eligible College Student. Or maybe you want to take advantage of a family trip to see some potential Colleges. Excellent! Now what?

Starting Early is Immensely Helpful, but Requires Strategy

Starting Early is Immensely Helpful, but Requires Strategy

The Realistic Search – Many institutions state they use a holistic approach in their admissions process, which means they are looking beyond (not instead of) test scores and grades when considering your application. BUT that doesn’t mean they don’t heavily weigh your test scores and grades when considering your application. At highly selective Colleges, RARE exceptions may be made for a phenomenal athlete, a young Yo Yo Ma, a student who has overcome amazing obstacles or contributed in a spectacular way in their community (no, I don’t mean you went to the Humane Society every week to walk dogs).

If you don’t fit into one of the exceptional categories, you need to be aware that a student that doesn’t match a school’s academic (grades, test scores) profile is less likely to be accepted into that institution. Furthermore, these so-called “reach” schools are much less likely to offer you merit aid. Long story short, be realistic and compare your academic profile to that of a typical accepted student to know whether a particular school is a “safety” “match” or “reach” school. Remember that comparing your academic profile to the typical admitted student as your sole criteria for whether you are likely to be accepted into a College is oversimplifying the Admissions process.

PARENTS: Motivating Your Student by Exposing Them to a Great Institution A great way to motivate your child to do well in High School is to expose them to a great institution that motivates them. I don’t think too many kids would walk on Stanford’s campus and not think, “Wow, I’d like to go here!”. (When my kid said that, I said “I’d like to go here too!”) Downside: if there is no way their academic record or your wallet are going to make that school possible, you may be setting them up for disappointment. On the other hand, never say never when it comes to your child getting into a “reach” school. I think you need to make an educated decision about what schools to expose to your child, as motivation.

Report Card

There are ways you can use your limited knowledge and project some answers to help you target your search.

The Early College Search Answer – You may not be far enough in your high school education to know where you GPA is heading, especially as you might choose to add some more rigorous courses (Honors, AP) into your workload as an upper classmen. And at most, you have only taken the PSAT. But there are ways you can take your limited knowledge and project some answers to help you target your search. And there are many things you should be doing now to make sure you are an Eligible College Student.

Extending Limited Knowledge – This College Board webpage provides information to help analyze your PSAT scores, including a chart to convert Sophomore year PSAT scores to likely Junior year PSAT scores, and a chart to convert Junior year PSAT scores to likely SAT Scores (see Standardized Tests and  When Do I Take Which Tests? if you are thinking “huh?”).  This information is for 2014. If you are looking for the same information for a more current year, type psat to sat conversion chart (and the year) in your internet search engine. Think about how you handle the demands of a more rigorous class and how your extracurricular activities and personal life are impacting your ability to study and apply yourself in class. If you have not been applying yourself, now is a good time to make changes and set goals. A College will be impressed if you bring up your grades after a slow start, even if your overall GPA is not stellar. See Grades and Test Scores – How do I Fix This? if you feel your academic record doesn’t reflect your abilities.

© Complete Systems, LLC dba Elligiblecollegestudent.com, All Rights Reserved
*** Elligiblecollegestudent.com is a division of Complete Systems, LLC ***

Disclaimer